Monthly Archives: May 2009

05.29.09
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English Peas and…

grilled things…
and pasta.

english-peas

It’s the height of the season for English peas. I get my peas from the Iacopi stand at the Ferry Plaza Farmers and find them hard to resist, though I limit myself to a bag about every two weeks. A small bag of the Iacopi peas produces about two cups of shelled peas.

I love the concept and the look of English peas. I even enjoy the shelling. But often, I just don’t know what to do with them. One of my favorites is creamed potatoes and peas. Peas and noodles are good, as well. I don’t like to just cook the peas as a vegetable… it reminds me of grabbing a bag of frozen peas and cooking them as a last minute vegetable addition to a meal. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just so… ordinary. It seems to me that the cost and effort it takes for fresh English peas demand more than that.

Last night I had a lovely piece of swordfish and was thinking about doing it on the grill. What to go with? During the evening news, I sat on the couch and shelled my peas. How to prepare?

red-spring-onion

I had a couple of spring onions and a larger red spring onion. Those sweet things are good with peas, and hey… I could grill the onions with the fish. I was on to something. When I went to get some noodles out of the cupboard, I saw a box of Piccolini – tiny farfalle pasta, a new product from Barilla – “cooks in only seven minutes.” Interesting. The fish will cook in seven minutes, the onions will take about seven minutes on the grill and the peas will cook in four or five minutes. I had a plan.

barilla-piccolini

I lit the grill, rinsed, dried and seasoned the swordfish with salt and pepper. The peas were shelled, I had about 2 cups, so I measured two cups of pasta. I trimmed the onions, cut each in half and, in a shallow bowl, tossed them with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. I put on a pot of water for the pasta and peas and preheated the countertop oven to 175°F.

When the grill was ready, on went the onions and the swordfish. Seven minutes later the onions were soft with a bit of crunch and mildly charred. I chopped those and put the fish in the oven to keep warm.

Just before the pasta went into the pot, I generously salted the water, threw in the pasta and set the timer for 7 minutes. A bit after the timer read 5 minutes, I threw the peas into the pot.

When the dinger dinged, I drained the pasta and peas, tossed a couple pats of butter and a gurgle of good olive oil into the hot empty pot, poured in the peas, onions and pasta and tossed.

pasta-peas

That was dinner, and oh so fine. The fish was fresh and succulent, the peas, onions and pasta were the perfect counterpoint. Yum.

I sometimes wonder; is it worth lighting the grill and letting it warm up for 15 minutes to use it for only 7 minutes? The answer is an emphatic YES. And that’s why I retired my trusty Weber charcoal grill and got the swell Weber Q gas grille.

Postscript:
The leftover pasta with peas and onions made a great lunch, heated with a can of tomato soup.

soup-w-pasta-peas

05.22.09
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Sunday Breakfast

Carol and I religiously eat dinner together at the dining room table. As for other meals, it’s catch as catch can – we each prepare what we want when we want it and eat at the kitchen table. She’s a sandwich person, I’m not; I tend toward soup or anything made in a skillet.

Sunday morning, I had a hankering for eggs poached in some kind of tomato sauce. That’s a good start. Although I have various homemade tomato sauces in the freezer, none were ready to go.

I did have a can of Progresso Vegetable Classics Tomato Basil Soup in the drawer. That’s pretty good for use as tomato sauce, thick and tomatoey.

I got out some celery to chop into the soup, but with the refrigerator door open, spied some excess fava beans that I had shelled and blanched for a lamb stew. Even better.

I got out the eggs and put two in a bowl of hot tap water. That will warm them up a bit… it doesn’t seem right to put cold eggs into hot sauce.

favas in one bowl, shells in another

favas in one bowl, shells in another

Put a small skillet on the stove over medium high heat, and when it was pretty hot, covered the bottom with olive oil, added the favas and cooked a bit, tossed and cooked a bit more. Continue reading →

05.12.09
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Tomato Sausage Bake

Last August, I wrote a piece called Cooking from the TV which compared the TV version of a recipe to the book version – and the perils thereof. The subject was Tomato and Sausage Bake from the Food Network show, JAMIE AT HOME by Jamie Oliver.

This week I had some heirloom tomatoes from Bruins Farms market stand (greenhouse tomatoes to be sure), some thick bacon, and a fine coil of sausage from The Fatted Calf. What a perfect circumstance to revisit that recipe.

Starting ingredients

tomato-sausage-bake

Clockwise from the tomatoes:
Tomatoes – three kinds of heirlooms… you can see some rosemary in the pan already.
Focaccia — goes onto the serving plate to capture the juices
New potatoes – not part of the original recipe, but what the hell, they can roast right along with the rest.
Unpeeled cloves of garlic just below the potatoes.
Bacon – this has already been rendered in the roasting pan for about five minutes.
Thyme
Basque sausage from The Fatted Calf

Assembled in the roasting pan

tomato-sausage-bake-1

First, I put the roasting pan in a 375 oven for five minutes or so to render the bacon. Drain the bacon on paper towels. Put the tomatoes in until the skins blistered and I could pull off most of the skins with tongs.
Out of the oven, I slid the bacon under the tomatoes and added the potatoes and sausages. Back in the Countertop Convection Oven on fan bake for 30 minutes.

tomato-sausage-bake-2

Out of the oven and ready to serve over the focaccia. Drizzle with your good olive oil and you are set for a flavorful and comfortable dinner. Yum.